


Flavor of the Month

by GoldenWaffles



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Holidays, Ice Cream, Monthly Fic, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22275001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenWaffles/pseuds/GoldenWaffles
Summary: A little exploration of a world where Willow and Tara get together at New Years and then spend the whole year together. Birthdays, holidays, and lazy afternoons. No heavy angst. Plenty of fluff and light. And a Happily Ever After.And there's ice cream. Lots and lots of ice cream.
Relationships: Tara Maclay/Willow Rosenberg
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	1. Start the Clock

Willow stood on the rooftop, looking out into the cool darkness. Stars twinkled, but no other lights or colors appeared.

  


“W-we should still have… um… ten minutes or so. I think,” Tara called from behind her. Willow sighed and turned around. Tara was sitting on a quilt that they had spread out and weighted down with candles. The wind was gusting, and kept catching her fine hair and sending it whirling, but she didn’t tie it back. She just pushed it aside with a chuckle whenever it covered her face, letting it fall in chaotic waves in all directions. In the guttering candlelight, it gave her a wild look, like she was some kind of runaway nature spirit. Willow caught herself staring and made herself look away, back across town. As she broke eye contact, she saw Tara smiling, that crooked, self-conscious smile that made Willow’s insides twist.

  


“Yeah.” She tried to shrug casually, but she could hear the nerves in her voice. “Yeah. I mean, we do. It’s just that when it gets really close like this, I get all jumpy. Like, ‘come on, just get on with it already.’”

  


Tara watched her, the same way she always seemed to be watching her. Willow stood off to the side, scuffing her feet nervously, but Tara’s eyes burned through her, like she could see inside her. Like she _knew_.

  


They hadn’t planned tonight, at least not consciously. They had just been sitting in Tara’s dorm, talking, and one of them had mentioned New Year’s, and they both said they didn’t have plans, and Tara mentioned that last year she had snuck onto the roof to watch the fireworks, and then everything snowballed and here they were. A lot of things seemed to happen that way with the two of them. Everything falling apart, and then falling together, falling into place.

  


Falling in…

  


“Come here,” Tara said, patting the space next to her. Willow hesitated for a split-second, but then walked over and sat at her side. Tara took a deep breath, breathing in the faint smoke from the candles and the cool air of the night. She seemed peaceful here under the stars, but Willow still felt tense and restless.. “Are you okay?”

  


Willow didn’t know how to respond to the question. She wasn’t sure if she was okay. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling at all. But there was something. Something that happened to her when Tara smiled at her. Something she felt when they cast spells together. Something that struck her when Tara took her hand sometimes, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  


Tara took her hand now.

  


“I think so,” Willow breathed. Tara’s touch, cool at first, warmed as the moment stretched out. Tara’s thumb absentmindedly stroked the back of her hand, and Willow turned it over and linked their fingers. It felt nice. It always felt nice. She looked up at Tara’s face. The faintest shadow of her smile was still there, but there was a new seriousness in her eyes, an intensity as she looked at Willow that made her breath catch.

  


Willow wasn’t stupid. She had her flaws, but stupidity had never been one of them. She and Tara had been friends for a few months now. But it was an unusually close, intense friendship. They shared secrets and insecurities. They held hands and curled together around spellbooks or computer screens. They went on walks and ate meals and watched movies.

  


And while that was new and different to Willow, she might never have thought twice about any of it except for one fact: Tara was gay.

  


It wasn’t a secret, and Tara had never once acted like it was. For all her shyness and insecurity, she had never wavered about that. She never pushed for more, and she never did anything that made Willow uncomfortable, but Willow wasn’t stupid. She had seen the way Tara’s eyes sometimes burned into her, or the way her face changed when Willow smiled at her. And then, a few days ago, that one word, seared onto her heart: “Yours.”

  


_“I am, you know.”_  
_“What?”_  
_“Yours.”_

  


Tara fixed Willow with a searching gaze, like she was looking for some hint about how she was feeling.

  


“It’s almost time,” she said, not looking away.

  


“Yeah,” said Willow, then continued in a stronger voice. “Almost time.” Willow’s thumb began its own journey, stroking along Tara’s long, slender fingers. “Tara?” she asked after a moment.

  


“Yeah?” Tara asked. Her voice sounded lower, breathier.

  


“I think I…”

  


She was interrupted by a loud, sharp whistling noise, followed by an explosive _crack!_ and a flare of light.

  


Tara surged forward, and without thinking, Willow joined her, pressing their lips together. Tara kept it brief, almost chaste, but as soon as their lips parted, Willow leaned forward and recaptured them, deepening the kiss. In the background, a kaleidoscope of colors lit the sky and the air crackled with noise.

  


They eventually broke apart, probably seconds later, although it felt like minutes. Willow was almost in shock with how good it had felt to kiss Tara. Like every endorphin in her whole body had lit up all at once. She opened her eyes and saw Tara breathing hard and smiling, not her usual crooked half-smile, but a huge, dumb grin that lit up her whole face.

  


“You interrupted me,” Willow said.

  


“Yeah,” Tara agreed, still catching her breath.

  


“I was about to say something really smart and important.”

  


“Yeah?”

  


“I don’t remember what it was right now.”

  


Tara laughed, and it was such a happy sound that Willow thought she might die. Or fly.

  


“Willow…”

  


“Wait, it’s coming back to me.” She clasped Tara’s hands in both of her own. “Tara, I know this is gonna sound a little crazy, but… I think I might be kinda gay. And I think I might really, really, really like you. Do you—”

  


“Yes.”

  


“You’re interrupting me a lot today.”

  


“I’m sorry?” She didn’t sound sorry.

  


“Go out with me?”

  


“Still yes.”

  


“Great. Cool. Awesome.” Willow didn’t pull away. They stayed, hands clasped in a tangle of fingers, heads hanging inches apart. “We should go on a date. Maybe this week. Do you have time this week?”

  


Tara looked up at her, peering through the curtain of her hair.

  


“Are you in the mood for ice cream?” she asked.

  


“Huh?” Willow felt sure she had misheard.

  


“Ice cream. Do you want some?”

  


“What, now?”

  


“Yeah.”

  


Willow had to fight back a ridiculous smile.

  


“It’s midnight. On New Year’s Day.”

  


“That’s not an answer.”

  


“If you must know, I am always in the mood for ice cream.”

  


“Good. Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this came from a prompt I read somewhere (Tumblr, probably), and I sketched out a handful of chapters before I could stop myself. I wasn't necessarily going to post it, but you know what? Life is short, and stories don't do anyone any good languishing in an old Scrivener file forever, so we're going to give it a go. No matter how many years it's been, I can never fully separate from this fandom. So I hope some of you out there get a kick out of this. Thanks for reading. Go get yourself some ice cream. Also, don't be surprised if I backdate this later and pretend I actually posted it on New Years, the way it was supposed to be.


	2. January: Vanilla

It was a sunny, unseasonably warm January day, and the two women walked down the sidewalk towards the ice cream shop. They weren’t quite holding hands, but their fingers kept finding each other as they walked, touching gently or brushing against each other.

“It’s, um… really weird to be getting ice cream in January. I’m still not used to it,” Tara said, lifting her head towards the sun. In deference to the heat, she had given up her favored sweaters and long sleeves and was instead wearing a light blouse with a long, swishy skirt, contrasting Willow’s T-shirt and jeans. Both were committed to enjoying the heat wave while it lasted.

“It’s usually pretty cool here in January. Not, like, Arctic cold, but solidly cool,” Willow argued halfheartedly. It was a hard argument to win on this day in particular, and Tara breathed a laugh at her expense.

“Sixty degrees isn’t really ‘cool.’ Especially not by my winter standards.” Tara had told stories about snow and ice in winter, and blazing heat in summer. Both sounded completely awful in completely different ways, but she spoke of them with a sort of fond nostalgia that made Willow oddly curious.

“It can get into the fifties here. Sometimes. Not today, obviously.” Willow tugged at her collar, wishing she had chosen a lighter shirt. Tara grasped her hand long enough to squeeze it playfully, smirking.

“You’re cute, but fifties isn’t cold either.”

They instinctively withdrew their hands as they stepped into the café and approached the other people in line, in some silent, unspoken deference to public decorum. Willow frowned at herself, eying her hand accusingly, but Tara didn’t seem to have noticed. Willow cleared her throat.

“So what kind do you want? They’ve got everything here. Rocky road, cookie dough, chocolate chip, coffee,” she listed, ticking each off on her fingers as she scanned the menu board. “Plus, they’ll put in all kinds of stuff if you ask. Sprinkles, or chocolate chips. Oh— or gummy bears.” She looked up triumphantly at the last one, as though she had made an ironclad argument, but Tara’s smile had faded.

“Oh, um… I don’t know. Y-you can choose, if you w-want.” Tara was blushing, and looked like she wanted to say more, but her stutter held her back.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Willow asked. She had seen this reaction enough times— turning her head, letting her hair fall forward, stammering— to know that Tara was feeling self-conscious and uncomfortable, but _now_ seemed like a strange time for it.

“N-nothing. I just guess I felt like plain vanilla. I know that’s boring, but… I guess most of the time I’m pretty boring, so…” She attempted a self-deprecating smile that wasn’t quite convincing.

Willow gave her a bewildered look.

“What? You’re not boring,” she said immediately, without even thinking. Tara blushed harder, looking even more uncomfortable.

“I kinda am. I mean, I’m okay with it. It’s fine. It’s always been that way.”

Willow tried to catch her eye, but she was looking down, her smile fake and painfully awkward.

“No, you’re not. Why would you think that?” Willow reached out and touched her arm, trying to pull her back from whatever negative thoughts had her cornered.

Tara finally looked back up, and Willow held her gaze, trying to read her expression. Mostly, she just seemed embarrassed to have even mentioned it.

“I don’t know. Probably just… the way people act around me? And talk about me?” Tara said, practically wincing at herself.

“What people?” Willow demanded, filled with a mix of bewilderment and righteous fury. “I’ve never thought you were boring.”

“You don’t,” Tara agreed, and Willow felt a tiny surge of relief that at least _that_ much was true. “But everyone else does.”

Willow started to argue, but it was their turn in line. At the cashier’s prompting, Tara sheepishly ordered vanilla, and Willow copied her out of solidarity. When the server handed them their ice cream, they carried it outside, walking towards a nearby park.

“You should have just ordered whatever you wanted,” said Tara, shaking her head despairingly at Willow’s plain vanilla cone.

“I’m making a point here,” Willow argued, her head held high and defiant, although her severity was somewhat undercut by the drip of melting ice cream attempting to run down her hand. Tara raised an eyebrow at her.

“And w-what point is that?”

“That you’re not boring, and neither is vanilla.” Willow licked her cone, as if in demonstration. And then her hand, because melted ice cream would get gross and sticky if left alone. Tara watched her with amusement.

“What’s not boring about me?” she asked, with just the slightest edge of challenge in her voice. Willow turned to face her.

“Everything. I mean, come on, you’re a super smart, really goofy, incredibly sweet, mega powerful witch. You grew up worshipping pagan goddesses at homemade altars and training horses and growing magic gardens. You were brave enough to come out as a lesbian in a small town where everyone, _especially_ your family, hated gay people. You collect weird, crazy art and are fluent in _multiple_ dead languages. How is any of that boring?”

She stood her ground and watched Tara’s face soften. The forced, self-deprecating amusement melted into something gentler.

“D-do you really think all that?” she asked after a few seconds, her natural shyness bleeding through. Hidden from easy view by a conveniently large bush, Willow leaned forward and kissed her, swiftly but meaningfully.

She tasted just like vanilla.

Willow pulled back after a second, but took her hand instead, squeezing it reassuringly.

“Duh. I think you’re the best.” She sat down in the grass, tugging on Tara’s hand until she joined her, her skirt spreading over the ground like a blanket. “And, for the record, vanilla isn’t boring either. It’s one of the most complex flavors there is. It’s so rare and exotic that food chemists spent decades trying to come up with a synthetic version, but it was so hard to get all the nuances that they almost gave up.” She looked into Tara’s eyes, trying to see if any of her speech was sinking in. “Right? Did I make my point?”

Tara held her gaze, her blue eyes gentle and fond, until the side of her mouth quirked up— a real smile this time, albeit a reluctant one. But Willow would take it, given the circumstances.

“Alright, vanilla isn’t boring,” Tara admitted. Willow shot her a wary look.

“And neither are you,” she said firmly.

“If you say so.”

Willow nearly groaned in exasperation.

“I _do_ say so. But you shouldn’t take my word for it. You should know that you’re a really cool, fun, interesting person.”

“I know. Well, sometimes I know,” Tara said, and Willow understood her meaning. “It’s just that it doesn’t always feel that way. And when other people ignore me, or talk over me, or make fun of me, it just feels like they must have a reason.”

“The reason is that they’re jerkfaces and they think just because you’re quiet you’re an easy target,” Willow grumbled. Tara smiled wryly.

“I _am_ an easy target. For some reason, I always just let them do it.”

“It says more about them than it does about you,” Willow said, waving the argument off. “If they bothered to talk to you for five minutes, they wouldn’t see you that way. I mean, some of those Wicca group girls were mega-jerks to you, but they came around.”

Tara seemed to consider this.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Other people will, too. Lots of them.” Willow meant it, too. She had every faith in it. “I mean… most of my life, I thought I was too much of a… a goody-goody. I needed everyone to like me and approve of me. I built my whole life around it. It’s only been recently that I’ve learned to stop trying so hard and just be myself.”

“‘Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.’” Tara quoted.

“Exactly.”

“It’s a lot easier to say when you actually have people who matter to you,” Tara said. Her eyes took on a sort of distant look. Willow squeezed her hand again, holding onto it tighter, and Tara’s face softened, her expression going back to normal. “Which I do now,” she admitted. “Not just you, but Buffy and Anya and Xander, and Joyce. And the other Wicca girls, even. Maybe a few classmates. So that’s… cool.”

“More than cool. And you’ll have more of them. I know you will.” Willow glanced around to make sure they were alone, then kissed the back of her hand. “You know how I know?”

Tara smiled sardonically.

“Because I’m so complex and interesting? Like vanilla?” she asked.

“Now you’re getting it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, almost missed January. Anyway, this is what the format of this fic is kind of going to look like. Every month, a new flavor, and with it, a little snapshot. The story isn't going to cover anything particularly heavy. It's sort of just a way for me to keep my head in the fandom. But I hope some of you get a kick out of it. This chapter is semi-based on an anecdote from _The Dorito Effect_ about how hard it was to create vanillin because of how layered a flavor vanilla is, even though we tend to think of it as kind of neutral. I think that metaphor applies to Tara rather nicely.


End file.
